The Wilted Flowers
by Crakaboom
Summary: Hermione is reminded of her mom when she sees flowers. She finally understands how Harry feels


**A/N - I do not own anything Harry Potter. This story is for the Houses Competition.**

 **House - Ravenclaw**

 **Year - 1**

 **Prompt - [First line] The flowers died three weeks ago.**

 **Word count - 2127**

 _The flowers died three weeks ago. I kept them anyway, it was the only memory I had left of my mum._

Hermione sighed as she closed the book. She had been thinking of her parents a lot recently, especially since all her loved ones' lives had been threatened by Voldemort.

Everyone had been through that same horrible experience. Hermione had erased every memory of herself from her parents' minds. She looked outside the window towards the gardens where the flowers were vibrantly blooming; and reminding her of the times she watched her mother work her own brand of magic on dying flowers.

Harry was sitting under the shade of the giant apple tree in the massive school gardens. When he saw Hermione through the window, he leapt up and rushed inside.

"Hey, Hermione. What's going on?" asked Harry.

"Oh, nothing much, just reading a book. It's about a kid who lost his mother and keeps the flowers he got from her funeral," she told him. Sighing, "It makes me think of my parents. I took their memories of me. They will never know that I am their daughter."

Harry nodded, not really understanding why she was bringing this up now. Why would reading a book about a kid keeping dead flowers remind her of her parents? "I don't really understand what that has to do with your parents."

Hermione thought for a moment, "Well, my mother loved to work in the garden, and was almost always tending to her flowers. She had a gift for keeping them alive and making them look so beautiful and I am completely worthless at even keeping them alive!"

"I get it, I think. You miss your parents and reading about the kid who kept flowers from his mother's funeral made you think of your own mother and miss her even more," Harry said, comforting obviously a little bit new to him.

The two sat for a while in silence, just staring out the window. They found themselves doing this a lot since the war ended. Just relishing in the silence and reflecting on everything that had happened in their lives. Ron never understood their need for silence; he was always surrounded by people, loud people to be exact. Hermione had tried to explain to him that everyone deals with the aftermath of war differently, he just didn't seem to understand that just yet.

Professor McGonagall, for example, had taken the war quite hard. But she was happy that she got to summon the guardians. Some days she would sit and stare at them, wondering if she would ever have to call upon them again. Out of everyone who was feeling grief over Dumbledore's death, McGonagall's was probably the worst. She had been advised by Professor Dumbledore for the longest time, and now she no longer had that advice with her. She missed him, but lead the school in his absence with her head held high. She watched over the students and knew how each was dealing with the aftermath of the war. She tried to help them the best way she knew how, sometimes it wasn't enough.

Harry and Hermione stayed in the library for hours, not really talking, just thinking and reading. Harry looked over at Hermione and saw tears silently slipping down her cheeks. "Are you okay, Hermione?" he asked.

She looked up at him and nodded, "Yeah, I think so. I just miss my parents. I wish I could go to them and spend this time with them. Watching my mom tend to the flowers in the garden and helping my dad at the dentist office. I can't though. There's no way to restore their memories of me, and it just makes feel alone..." She closed the book she was reading and wiped at her eyes with the sleeves of her jumper.

"It's hard for me to understand what you're going through. My parents died, I never really knew them. I don't have any memories of them or things we did as a family. I do understand that you miss them, though," Harry said softly.

Hermione smiled and thanked Harry, slowly standing and hugging him gently. "You're the best, Harry. Thank you for being my friend through all of this."

"No problem. Now, I think it is time for dinner," Harry said. She nodded in agreement and they walked to the newly restored Great Hall to join the others for the feast to celebrate the finished restoration of the castle.

"Where have you two been all afternoon?" Ron asked from his place at the table amidst his many admirers.

"In the library, the quietest place in the castle," Hermione replied, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Not if you set off some fireworks in there," piped George, smirking from further down the table.

"I will never understand why you want quiet, Hermione. It's so _unnerving_ when it's quiet," Ron said, shivering a little bit at the thought of sitting in silence.

"I just like it," answered Hermione, it was a blunt answer, but she found she had been giving them a lot recently.

"It's how we deal with our thoughts," Harry stated. "Some people like quiet and some don't. There's nothing wrong with it, Ron. Everyone deals with things differently."

"I already explained this to you," Hermione stated, shaking her head.

Ron shrugged, "Well, I like lots of noise around me. Quiet reminds me of the many nights when we were hunting those damn Horcruxes." He shuddered, remembering those days and nights in the forest, hiding from death eaters.

They talked of mundane things while waiting for the feast to begin. Soon, McGonagall stood and called for attention. "I would like to thank you all for taking time out of your own lives to help restore this castle to its former glory. I know that things will never be exactly the same, but we can all work together to get past the horrors we faced a few months ago. We all need to have some understanding for everyone as we all deal with grief differently. Give each other love and time to come to terms with everything that has happened. Now, let's tuck in."

The food appeared on the tables and Ron was the first one to dig in.

"Pig," mumbled Percy under his breath.

Hermione shook her head, "Some things will never change, Percy." She began placing food on her plate.

"What? Is there something on my face?" Ron asked, noticing that they were talking about him.+

Harry guffawed, "No, Ron. Don't worry about it."

After dessert disappeared from the tables, they retired to their common rooms for the night. Hermione took her place near the fireplace. She stared into the fire, thinking of all that happened since Harry had defeated Voldemort. Their lives would never be the same, but she still wanted to work at the ministry in the Magical Law Enforcement department. She had a passion for finding new laws to help magical creatures. She would begin her pursuit of this next week when they all returned to their homes and had a little time to rest. Ron wanted to join Harry in the auror program. He felt that chasing death eaters would be the best way to deal with his anger at losing his brother to them. Harry would join the auror program, but that wasn't what he really wanted. He really wanted to be Minister of Magic so that he could change things. He wanted to help the magical world become more accepting of muggle-borns.

Suddenly, she sat forward, tears streaming down her face. "Harry," she choked out.

Harry knelt in front of her, his hands reaching for hers. "What is it, Hermione?"

She sucked in a few deep breaths before continuing, "I finally get it. I understand now."

"What do you understand?" he asked, confused. She was talking nonsense.

"How it must have been for you all these years without your parents, without any family to love you properly. I understand how you felt all those times we were at the Burrow for holidays. Will it always feel this way? Will we always feel so alone?" she explained.

Harry shrugged, "It's not so much feeling alone. I never knew what a family was until I saw the Weasleys all together at holidays. I didn't know what I was missing. I do now, but I only know that I am not as alone as I once felt. I have you, Ron, and the Weasleys. I do wonder sometimes what it would be like with a proper family. One day I will find out."

Hermione nodded, "I'm sorry that I never really understood before."

"It's okay, Hermione. Not everyone can understand what losing your parents feels like," Harry said and sat on the floor in front of her. His knees were starting to protest when he was kneeling for so long.

 _A year later…._

After chasing a death eater for miles on foot, Ron and Harry stopped running and looked at each other. "Are we wizards or not?" Ron said.

Harry laughed and they both apparated to just in front of the death eater, wands held out in front of them. The death eater stopped suddenly, surprised at the wizards appearing in front of him. In his haste to get away, he had forgotten that he could just apparate, so he ran as fast as he could. They apprehended him and apparated back to the ministry to place him in a cell to await trial. The death eater yelled and screamed at them from the moment they placed the bindings on his hands and feet.

Once they left the man in the cell, Harry and Ron headed up to their office. Closing the door blocked out the noise of the clerks typing up memos.

"Another one bites the dust," Harry said.

Ron stared at him, "I get it now."

"Get what?" Harry asked.

"I understand why you and Hermione like the silence. That man was giving me a headache. All that noise out there in the lobby was making me jittery. Sometimes silence is a good thing to have." Ron said.

Harry chuckled, "Now you know how we feel when you start rambling."

"Hey!" Ron yelled good-naturedly. He and Harry had the kind of friendship that they could tease each other and not make the other angry. Ron hoped it would always be that way. He finally understood that people are different in their grief. He could now give Hermione and Harry the silence they needed when they needed it and not feel left out by them.

"If you let me have the silence I need each day, I will let you have all the noise you need each day. Deal?" Harry said to his friend.

"Deal," Ron replied. "Think maybe you and Hermione would want to go out for dinner tonight? Maybe hit a club after?"

"I wouldn't mind it. I'm not sure about Hermione. Why not go to her office and ask?" Harry said.

"I'll do that," Ron countered and stood to leave. He made his way to the elevators to go to the Magical Law Enforcement floor and found Hermione in her office. Lightly tapping on the glass in the door, he got her attention. She motioned him in.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Ron?" she asked her friend.

"Well, I wanted to ask if you would like to join Harry and I for dinner and maybe hit up a club after?" Ron stated.

Hermione smiled, "Sure, that sounds lovely."

"I mean, I know a club is not all that quiet and you and Harry really like the quiet, but maybe sometimes it's good to have a lot of noise around. I understand now what you have been saying since the war. I understand why you guys like the silence as much as I like the noise," Ron told her.

"Yes, Ron. Sometimes it is good to have lots of noise around you. It helps to drown out all the thoughts going through your mind. It's also good to have quiet at times to help us sort through those thoughts," Hermione agreed. "Think Ginny would like to join us?"

Ron shrugged, "It's possible. With Ginny, you never know what will happen though."

Hermione laughed, knowing Ron understood his sister a lot more than she did. From what she knew of Ginny, he was right. You never knew what was going to happen with Ginny around.

As Ron left with a laugh, Hermione looked at the flowers on her desk and remembered, once again, how her mother was able to keep flowers alive with some sort of magic touch, while all Hermione did was kill them.


End file.
